


reminisce

by onceuponachildhood



Series: Heroic Hearts - the Senna Shepard story [8]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Changing Tenses, Experimental Style, F/M, Mild Language, Post-Canon, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-11
Updated: 2015-08-26
Packaged: 2018-04-14 03:14:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4548147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onceuponachildhood/pseuds/onceuponachildhood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After it all, he'd promised to take her home. Funny thing, how home could change to someone instead of someplace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. garrus

**Author's Note:**

> flashbacks are denoted by changed tense. past tense is flashback, present tense is the current fic. EDIT 8/27: flashback denoted by blockquote as well for reader enjoyment.

* * *

 The shuttle doesn’t have windows. Garrus Vakarian feels a prickle of unease along his plates at going somewhere blind, and more than a little thanks that they’re in a military-grade vehicle. But then again, this is Palaven. He would’ve been more surprised if it wasn’t military grade. A sturdy culture, theirs. He couldn’t believe how quickly his people had gotten back to Palaven and begun rebuilding. Rebuilding they were, piece by piece and day by day. Centuries of civilization and it was still somehow standing. Military-grade was a turian constant.

There’s a bump when the shuttle hits an air pocket - “Turbulence ahead” warns the pilot - and a clatter as Shepard’s cane slips away from her leg. She reaches out and snags it with the ease of someone well-practiced to the motion, and the disinterested air of someone who didn’t want to be well-practiced with the motion. _Better a cane than the alternative_ , he thinks. A bare handful of people actually expected Senna Shepard to return from the final battle, and he’s proud to have been among them.

The shuttle rattles again and the cane thwacks him hard in the leg. It hits his shin, thankfully, and not his spur. No matter how casually he plays it off, it always hurts worse on the spur. Shepard winces in sympathy, but her eyes are far away. She gets like that, sometimes - it was bad after her return to Alchera, worse still after Bahak. It happens less now that the reapers are gone and worlds are getting back on their proverbial feet, but often enough. “Sorry,” she says absently. She must be thinking heavy thoughts if she’s distracted enough to apologize to him over something like that; one of their first real fights as a married couple had been about her insatiable urge to apologize to everyone for her handicap.

There had been some raised voices involved - _raised voices_ , Garrus thinks with a snort.

> They’d yelled loud enough and angrily enough that they’d gotten the attention of every pre-fab dweller in a block’s radius. She’d stormed out, agile for someone still getting used to a new (fake) leg, but then again Shepard had always been graceful under the worst circumstances. She’d stormed out, in the rain- still yelling- and he’d followed- still yelling. He’d grabbed her arm. She’d yanked back away from him and that damnable prosthetic had slipped in the mud and she’d toppled. Garrus had caught her - furious or not, frustrated as hell or not, he _always_ had her six - and for a moment they’d just glared at each other; her in the circle of his arms, both of them barefoot and wet. Finally, Shepard licked her lips and suddenly the anger in her amber eyes was gone, transmuted, something heavier and truer taking shape in her gaze. “You know,” she’d said slowly, wryly, “on the pain of death if Tali were to ever hear about this, I’m pretty sure this is almost word for word what happens in act three of _Fleet and Flotilla Five_.” His anger vanished, too, leaving a feeling in his chest that ran hotter and stronger than anger ever could. _Love_ , his mind supplied. _You love this impossible woman_.

“Hey,” Shepard murmurs, and her hand is warm over his. “Credit for your thoughts?”

He glances down at their interlocked fingers, at the ring glittering on her finger. She’s looking at him now, actually looking - no far-off gaze or distraction. There’s just the quiet intense focus that is singularly Shepard. He’d thought the human custom of a ring was quaint, when Kasumi had mentioned it to him. Seeing that familiar blue constantly on Shepard’s finger now, where everyone else in the damn galaxy could see that he claimed her and she claimed him, still sometimes made him feel like he was a fresh-off-the-beat C-Sec agent meeting Shepard in a clinic in the wards. Nervous, stuttering, flailing at chance. Lucky enough that she’d let him tag along. “Still not sure how I convinced you to marry me,” he says, which isn’t necessarily the answer she’s looking for, but it’s not a lie.

She raises one eyebrow pointedly until he looks up and catches her expression. That look of mild disbelief that seems to say that’s obvious, Vakarian; better check those detective skills of yours. Her grin, however, is all cocky confidence. He drops his own mandibles wide and loose in a grin back. “Trying to figure out how you got so damn lucky?” she teases. Hell, she knows she’s a catch. He loves how comfortable she is with her own accomplishments; a woman strong and settled in her own skin. He loves it more with no pressure on them, no war looming in the distance, no mask firmly clamped down over feelings of panic and fear and _duty_. Her fingers squeeze his, and she responds so that he doesn’t have to. “Me too, Vakarian.” She shifts just enough to press her lips to his scarred face before settling back in her seat, shoulder pressed to his arm solidly. The shuttle settles, turbulence passed, and Garrus closes his eyes.

“Wake up,” Shepard murmurs. Garrus opens his eyes and reaches for a gun that isn’t strapped to his back before his mind can even catch up with his body. He glances down at her and drops his hand almost sheepishly, but he doesn’t try to explain. Shepard’s as much of a soldier as he is. Technically, she’d been serving longer than he had even with her two years out of commission and her six months’ house arrest. They were both retired, now - after saving the whole damn galaxy, both their respective militaries had agreed that they deserved nothing more than a rest - but as Shepard herself liked to say…

> “You can take the soldier out of the force…” Garrus looked up from where he’d made the bed, military-neat. Shepard leaned in the doorway, crutches lazily tucked under one arm. She hated the damn things, but she used them dutifully per Doctor Chakwas’ orders.
> 
> He didn’t comment on them any more than he didn’t comment on her cheeks being pale with pain and exertion. “What’s that?” he asked, carefully standing up. Both of them had taken a beating in that final fight, but by then Garrus mostly only had to deal with achy plates when it rained.
> 
> Shepard tilted her head at him, eyes bright with some familiar memory. “Sort of an old human saying,” she explained. She pushed off the doorframe and settled a crutch under each arm, turning with some difficulty before making her way to the kitchen. Garrus followed. Out the window, he could see the Earth pre-dawn light making its way across the landscape. It was a green planet, Earth, but at the first rays of its star it was as golden as Palaven. There was already coffee brewing for Shepard in the pre-fab’s tiny coffeepot- and a kettle waited, still nearly-boiling, for his own cup of _sinensis_. He hadn’t expected her to forget about his needs, but it still made him feel just a little sentimental when she remembered the little things. She leaned the crutches against the table, and it was a mark of how well the morning was going that she didn’t fuss when he pulled the chair out for her. She sat with a sigh and waited until he’d fixed his ‘weird dextro tea’ and sat down with her before she spoke again. “Here we are, two busted-up veterans, with all the leave time in the galaxy.”
> 
> “You make us sound old,” he’d interrupted.
> 
> She laughed, low and lazy. “I feel old, Vakarian.” There was a pause as she propped her chin in her palm, elbow braced on the table. “Here we are, on what is essentially a fucking well-deserved vacation, and we’re both up before the sun and ready to tackle the day.” Even her wry grin was sedate, unhurried, lazy. Garrus sipped his drink and let the silence stretch on. For a bit, the only sounds were the chirping of birds outside and the soft burbling of the coffee. Shepard watched him and Garrus let her, content with the silence and the company. Finally, Shepard stretched, and though her cracking joints and shifting injuries had to hurt, she didn’t even wince. “You can take the soldier out of the force,” she repeated, “but you can’t take the force out of the soldier.”

Force was an apt description for Shepard. She’d blown through his life like a tornado and swept him along like a landslide. Compared to how she’d taken the galaxy by storm, it shouldn’t have made such an impact. Shepard blinks at him, poking his mandible with her free hand. Her left grips the head of her cane firmly. She’s standing. The shuttle’s landed. … he’d fallen asleep. He blinks at the implications, and never mind that Shepard’s giving him a stern glare that could rival his father’s. “Come on,” she says, sounding almost impatient. “There’s only a few minutes left before dusk.” _Only a few minutes before_ \- Shepard shifts her tactics from poking him to tugging at his hand. “I want to see Palaven before Trebia sets.”

Chakwas had said- in no uncertain terms- that even with anti-radiation pills, even with her cybernetics (because of her cybernetics), Shepard should only venture out on Palaven for any real length of time during the day in an enviro-suit. Most of their visit was scheduled around the night cycle. But Shepard was stubborn. A few minutes before sunset probably wouldn’t hurt her. It certainly wouldn’t kill her. “Alright, alright,” he grumbles. The way her face lights up is worth any risk, he thinks, and after all she’s done he’s certainly not going to begrudge her the risk of a little radiation.

The doors swing open for them and Garrus gives the pilot a nod of thanks. He’s _good_. The pilot has Palaven colony markings, same as Garrus, though the swoop over his mandibles suggests a coastal city rather than the capital. He’d picked a cliff to touch down on, one known for its sightseeing strengths to young turian couples everywhere. Garrus had never taken a date there personally but the place is almost a legend in of itself.

Shepard gasps, and the soft genuine sound of awe is the sweetest thing he’s ever heard. With one hand tight around Garrus’ own and the other almost white-knuckled around the head of her cane, she sets foot on Palaven soil for the first time. “ _Garrus_ ,” she breathes, taking a few more steps forward. There’s no railing, no protection from falling, but Shepard will do what she wants to do and to hell with the danger. He follows, trusting her to know her limits, and she nears the edge of the cliff. A respectable and almost safe distance from the edge, she stops, and looks out over the plains surrounding the capital. Everything is bathed gold in the light of the sinking sun.

There’s a dry, arid wind whipping around them, but Shepard doesn’t seem to care. She’s transfixed, amazed, by what she’s seeing; Garrus can read it all in her stance even if her face is turned toward his home. The wind is tugging at her hair, teasing strands from the less-than-military bun she’d started wearing. She looks like a living silhouette - black hair and dark skin standing apart from the brightness of everything around her. Her skirt billows around her, and even the muted green looks brilliant because it’s on her. “It’s beautiful,” she says, voice still soft and reverent. He hasn’t taken his eyes off her. She’d argued long and hard with Chakwas about her first time seeing Palaven being during the daylight, and now he’s so glad that she had.

When he doesn’t answer she turns to look at him, that infuriatingly smug eyebrow-raise of hers in full force. She peers up at his face and her amber eyes catch the rays of the dying sunlight, turning golden for him.  “Yeah,” he says, heart in his throat. His subvocals are thick with what he can’t voice - all the love and surprise he can’t get into words. All his embarrassment at the cheesy line, laid bare for her even if she can’t fully understand it. “It is.”

She doesn’t laugh, though her shoulders shake with contained mirth; he’s quite thankful that she doesn’t laugh. Honestly, his pride is only stronger for the pride she has in him. Shepard lets her cane clatter to the dusty ground and steps toward him, drawing the only support she needs from his hand around hers. He holds his other arm out for her dutifully and she steps into his embrace like a woman coming home. She looks like she wants to say _something_. He’s as good at reading her as she’s gotten at reading him and this is definitely a Something face. Something with a capital ‘s’, Something like saying “I love you, Garrus Vakarian” on top of the Presidium.

Considering they’re already married, he can’t imagine what could be as big as that.

She lets go of his hand but only so that she can reach up and cup his scarred mandible. She always does that, reminds herself how close she got to losing him - though she argues that she’s reminding herself that he’s _still there_ , he knows Shepard thinks about how close they’ve gotten to not having this as much as he does. Her eyes are on him, gold and shining, even as Trebia’s last rays start to fade. Garrus settles his hand over hers, tilts his face into the contact and just breathes for a moment. Finally, he asks “Credit for your thoughts?”

She huffs out a little laugh. “I love you,” she says. It thrills him to hear it. It _still_ thrills him to hear it. He doubts it’ll ever stop. Shepard pulls her hand away, about as reluctant as he is about losing the contact, and uses his arm for support as she retrieves her cane from the dust. “Let’s go see your family.”

* * *

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will be continued... some day. Probably.
> 
> sinensis is a reference to camellia sinensis, a real-life plant used to make tea.


	2. titus

* * *

The shuttle sets down not long after darkness truly falls on Palaven. Right on time. Titus sets his datapad down on the counter next to his neglected cup of _sinensis_. He can hear them talking through the door, though he can’t make out the conversation. His son’s voice raises a little, and he can make out a thanks to the shuttle pilot, then there’s a woman’s voice, warm and steady and not at all dual-toned. It sounds like the same voice as the one he’d heard during reports of the war.

> “Shh, shh, I’ve got signal!” The turian who’d called out, a bright young tech Solana knew from school, fiddled with her omni-tool until she could get the broadcast loud enough for everyone to hear. That she could pick up the signal at all with everything going on and the reapers not even three districts away was a miracle.
> 
> “ _-iana Allers, reporting with Battlespace. Commander Shepard, thank you for your time. I know you’re a busy woman, but especially now with rumors of curing the genophage-_ ”  someone made a distressed noise but was instantly hushed. Titus himself didn’t react aside from the tightening of his mandibles. “ _-must be ready to focus on the reapers_.”
> 
> “ _They’re not rumors, Allers._ ” The soldier who spoke sounded strong, focused, without being hard. But having worked with humans, Titus could hear the steel beneath her tone. That was a woman who truly believed the words she was about to speak. “ _Peace has been negotiated between clan leader Urdnot Wrex and Primarch Adrien Victus-_ ” So the reports that Fedorian had been killed **were** true, not that anyone would interrupt the broadcast to say so “ _-and now that the genophage is cured, krogan forces will be deployed to Palaven to fight the reapers and extract survivors_.” Help was coming. Hope was coming. Regardless of how he felt personally about the human Spectre, Titus could see that hope reflected in the faces around him.
> 
> “ _The Primarch has been delivered safely to a defensible colony- the name of which is classified for security reasons- but he didn’t leave you empty-handed, did he, Commander?_ ”
> 
> There was amusement in the woman’s tone now. Titus would bet his life on it, if he were a gambling man. “ _No, Allers, he didn’t. On board with us is Hierarchy Reaper Advisor Garrus Vakarian-_ ” Titus didn’t miss the faces that swung toward him, just as he didn’t miss the hands that patted his shoulders and arms in congratulations at the news; he didn’t miss them, but he was too focused on the report to acknowledge them “ _-whose name you might recognize from my ground team in the Battle for the Citadel. He’s known about the reapers from the beginning, and is helping myself and Urdnot Wrex coordinate forces for the push for Palaven_.” She drew a breath that was just audible through the tinny audio feed. “ _Vakarian’s a hell of a soldier-_ ” The signal cut out suddenly, and though she tried the tech couldn’t get it back. Even a little news was better than none, and that bunker full of wounded and retired turians started to fill with hope too.

Titus wonders if the commander knew then that his son was in love with her. She certainly knows it now; vids of their reunion had been blasted across several media channels ‘for morale,’ though it was obviously for ratings. And he can hear her and his son on the doorstep, speaking softly about something. He takes a sip of his long-cold _sinensis_ and waits for them to knock.

The knock when it comes is softer than a turian hand would make against the door. Titus rises from his seat and goes to the door. He’s struck at first not by the human at the door but by the turian behind her. Garrus is taller than he is, still scarred from whatever he’d been doing on Omega - one day Titus would get the full story from him - but he looks brighter, somehow. Less gaunt. More… whole. He’s carrying their bags; the walking aid clutched in the human woman’s hand is enough to explain that. The hand on her walking aid bears a ring that looks significantly like the wedding bands he saw on the Citadel. Her other hand rests light on his son’s arm. It’s surprisingly domestic. Garrus had never seemed like he’d be satisfied with domestic.

Titus steps aside so that they can come in and closes the door behind them.

Commander Shepard is taller than he expects. He remembers human women on the Citadel and generally they were even shorter than the men. Shepard is nearly as tall as Solana. Garrus sets the bags down against the wall and Shepard turns toward Titus with an unreadable expression. “Mr. Vakarian,” she says, and then raises her hand and gives him a ritualistic turian salute- one of particularly great respect and deference to the head of household. Behind her, Garrus’ mandibles flutter in shock; he looks positively dumbstruck. She’d done some research, then. His son hadn’t taught her that at all. She waits until he’s made the appropriate responding gesture before she lowers her hand and offers it in a much more human handshake. “Titus.” He finds her grip unsurprisingly strong. “Senna Shepard. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Likewise.” He sees Garrus glance at his cold _sinensis_ and says “I don’t have anything to offer you to drink. Solana won’t be here until tomorrow, and she’s bringing a human chai with her.”

Shepard’s expression brightens at the mention of chai. “It’s alright. I brought hot chocolate just in case.” She heads for their bags, patting Garrus’ arm as she goes by.

Garrus turns to Titus. If the elder Vakarian thought Shepard’s face was hard to read, his son’s expression is written in code. “Dad,” he says tightly.

“Son.” Titus knows his son won’t be expecting him to move, and so he steps forward and embraces Garrus. The sudden tensing in shock stings a little, but the hurt is soothed after a second by how tightly and genuinely Garrus returns the embrace.

They step apart after a moment and don’t say anything, but the silence is less uncomfortable than Titus would have expected. “Go, sit.” Garrus finally says. “I’ll put our things away. Our room is…?”

No hesitation. No awkward dancing around it. Just ‘our’ room. Titus would wonder where this confidence came from, if his son hadn’t sat him down and walked him through the journey he’d already taken with the human Spectre. “Second door on the right,” he responds, and watches his son gather up their bags and move down the hall. Once his son is out of sight he turns back toward the kitchen. Shepard is watching him watch his son. He looks from her to the kettle heating slowly, and it dawns on him that she didn’t have to search for it at all.

She must catch the tenor of his thoughts. “Garrus keeps ours in the same place.”

“Ah.” Garrus would have spoken or shifted or otherwise acted out under the weight of his stare, but Shepard leans against the counter and meets his gaze comfortably. She reminds him of himself - a year ago if someone told him he’d be comparing himself to a Spectre he would’ve shut the door in their face. Garrus is definitely his mother’s child; same hotheaded drive to _do something_ , same stubborn streak a klick wide. Nobody doubted when Aeliana Vakarian was dedicated to a cause. Shepard, from what he’s heard, is tempered steel in a duty-bound sheath, and doesn’t _that_ ring a bell.

Titus waits until he is sure Garrus is well and truly out of earshot before he speaks. “You’re wearing a human wedding band, but the color…” It’s a familiar enough color. He’d seen it every time he looked in the mirror - the color on his plates, on his son’s, on his daughter’s.

“Vakarian blue,” she finishes.

A silence settles, not uncomfortable but tense enough with this new information.

“I saw you notice the ring,” she says. He looks up from the discarded datapad that he hadn’t even really returned his attention to. “You made the same face Garrus does when he realizes something he doesn’t want to realize.” There’s a challenge in her gaze that neither of them will draw attention to aloud. Yes, this human is made of sterner stuff. Titus can see why Garrus would be drawn to her.

“So,” Titus says carefully. “You and my son.”

“No Shepard without Vakarian,” she agrees, and there’s something in her voice that indicates deeper meaning. That’s a puzzle for another time, however. _One case at a time, Titus. Do it by the book_.

“Married,” he says, taking the evidence toward the most logical outcome.

She doesn’t smile, exactly, but there’s something blatant and open about her expression that speaks of happiness. “Yes.”

He scratches at a mandible in thought. His son is married- married and didn’t even take the time to tell him. Well. Maybe a classic Titus response is the wrong way to go about this. How would Aeliana have reacted to Garrus not telling them that he was married? “Tell you what,” he says, slowly, and he can feel just a hint of that mischievous spark that attracted him to his late wife in the first place. “Don’t tell him that I know.” He drops his mandibles, just a little. “Let him sweat a bit.”

Shepard doesn’t have time to respond before they hear a door close and Garrus’ footsteps growing louder in the hallway. She nods, instead, to signal her agreement to the plan. There’s a hint of a smile still playing on her lips, and it blossoms fully when Garrus walks back into the room. He looks between the two of them and must decide that the silence isn’t an awkward one.

He takes Titus’ cup and dumps the bitter cold drink into the sink. Shepard slides out of his way, still leaning against the counter, and he gets two more mugs down from the cabinet. Their mugs are different from the ones human C-Sec officers used, but not so different that Shepard will have trouble with them. The ease with which they move around each other, and the fact that Shepard had yet again known where the dishes would be - of course Garrus would keep things the way he remembered his mother keeping them - would clue Titus in that maybe this isn’t just a girlfriend meeting the family type of visit, if he didn’t already know.

Titus straightens a little from his relaxed posture and puts on what Aeliana called his ‘investigator face.’ “So,” he says, voice a controlled drawl, “when’s the bonding ceremony?”

Garrus drops the mug in his hands and its clatter on the counter isn’t loud enough to muffle his curse. The mug doesn’t appear to be broken, at least. Titus wonders when his son started using such filthy language. Shepard covers her mouth with a hand but not before a laugh escapes. “Dad,” Garrus says sharply, subvocals shaking with embarrassed panic.

“Son,” Titus replies mildly.

Shepard lowers her hand. “Well,” her voice is shaking too, but with suppressed laughter, “looks like those detective skills are genetic after all.”

Garrus nearly drops the mug again. Titus’ eyes meets Shepard’s and she winks. Garrus sets the mug down so firmly that it might be broken anyway. “ _Shepard_.”

“Vakarian,” she replies, tone as mild as Titus’ own. He looks between the two of them more suspiciously. Titus wonders if he’s trying to figure out what’s going on or if Garrus is well and truly too flustered to take it slow and think it through. The kettle whistles its readiness and even though Garrus reaches for it, Shepard bats his hand away easily. “I don’t know if I want you handling a boiling hot pot when you couldn’t even conquer a mug.”

Titus expects his son to argue, and Garrus doesn’t disappoint. Titus expects his willful, headstrong son to argue about people doing things for him, but what comes out of his son’s mouth is “Let me. You’ve been on your feet a lot today…”

There’s just a second where her shoulders tense before Shepard turns toward Garrus. Humans aren’t an attractive species by any stretch of the definition. Soft and squishy, with all those strange flat teeth like asari. But there’s something achingly, echoingly familiar about the scene, something intimate and beautiful, that resonates with Titus.

> Aeliana turned away from where she was wrist-deep in _triticum_ dough and brushed her hands on the folds of her skirts. Titus didn’t even realize she’d moved until after she’d steered him into a chair at the counter and started getting things out to make him some tea. “Aeliana, don’t-”
> 
> His wife turned, talons of her hand settling on one cocked hip. “You’re exhausted,” she said flatly. Even her subvocals sounded just that- flat “And you’ve still got a datapad in your hand from work.”
> 
> He did. He blinked down at the object like he had no idea how it’d gotten there. He’d carried his work home, he was so focused on it. “I can make my own-”
> 
> And people accused _him_ of having a harsh glare. Aeliana glared like focusing her ire could target the recipient and drop her frustration on them in an orbital strike. Titus wondered how close the nearest bunker was. “You are dead on your feet, Titus Vakarian, and if you think I want to bring our firstborn child into the world as a widow, you’re damn well mistaken.” It’s a mark of how tired he was that her words didn’t register until after she’d filled the kettle and gotten it on the stove.
> 
> “Our firstborn…” Stubborn and duty-bound to a fault Titus might have been, but he was also a notoriously good thinker. “You’re pregnant?”
> 
> Aeliana didn’t stop spooning out a proper serving of leaves, but she did slow. “I just found out this morning.” Titus did the only thing he could do. He dropped the datapad on the counter and stood. “Titus, what-” Her words cut off in a soft yelp when he lunged forward and embraced her, lifting her off the ground enough to spin her around. “You’re getting flour all over the place,” Aeliana said, laughing.
> 
> “I don’t care,” he said.
> 
> “It’s all over your suit,” she tried to argue. Titus set her down and looked down at her face. There was flour streaked along one of her mandibles. She looked up at him and snickered. “It’s on your brow plate.”
> 
> “I don’t care,” he repeated. “We’re going to have a baby.” It was suddenly hard to breathe. They were having a baby. Him, and this glorious woman in his arms. They were having a baby. Together. The full weight of it hit him, and he tightened his arms just a little.
> 
> “Titus?”
> 
> The switch from exhausted to exuberant to solemn might have startled her a little. Titus leaned forward just enough to press his forehead to his wife’s. She sighed, closing her eyes, and pressed harder against him. “I love you,” he murmured.

Shepard pushes back away from the counter, her full skirts swaying with the motion. She crosses her arms rather than planting her hand on her hip, but her hip cock is nearly the same. ‘Wife frustrated with stubborn husband’ seems to transcend even the boundaries of species. Her furrowed brow is familiar too. “Garrus,” she says, quiet but firm. “I can make a couple cups of _sinensis_. Chakwas cleared me for that much.”

“Shepard,” he says back. The pleading and worry in his subvocals is enough to make Titus feel like he’s intruding. _Can she even sense that?_ Titus wonders. _Does she truly hear what he’s trying to say?_

With a sigh, Shepard’s shoulders sink just a little. She rests a hand over Garrus’ own and meets his eyes. Titus is glad for the forgotten datapad beside him, and he flips through a trivial article about council nominations while trying to pretend that he’s not watching the younger couple. They just look at each other a moment, the soft curves of Shepard's human face tilted up to face the sharp angles of Garrus’. After a moment Shepard chuckles, and Garrus’ mandibles flare in a smug grin. “Alright, fine, you win. Come here.” She tugs Garrus’ face down so that she can press her lips to his mouth, then she tips their foreheads together.

“Shepard,” Garrus hisses, not subtle at all. “My dad’s right. There.”

Now she’s grinning smugly. “What, you don’t think he’s seen someone kiss before?”

“ _Senna_ ,” Garrus’s voice is sharp but the embarrassment in his subvocals is almost enough to make Titus crack a smile.

Shepard relents, letting go of his son’s head long enough to grasp for her walking aid. Despite his obvious discomfort, Garrus stands still and lets her use his arm until she has her own support. Walking aid firmly in hand, Shepard says, “I’m sure he’s seen people kiss before,” and though he rolls his eyes Garrus lets her pull him down for another of those strange human kisses. “I mean, he does have two children.”

It takes a second for her meaning to sink in, but then Garrus groans and pulls his face away from hers. “Oh, Shepard, please never talk about my dad’s-”

“Sex life?” she suggests, and the look of horror on Garrus’ face is enough to gain a laugh from Titus.

“Yes. That.” Garrus glares down at Shepard, but there’s clearly no ire in it. Long-standing resignation to her antics, perhaps; Titus can see the fondness lurking behind the expression. “Go sit down, you impossible woman.”

She’s grinning fiercely, but there’s something else lurking behind her eyes when she says, “Insubordination? Again?”

There’s no way even a human could mistake the pleased note in Garrus’s voice, and it’s becoming more and more apparently that Shepard isn’t just any human. “You followed the last order.”

“I did,” she agrees in a soft voice, and there’s something puzzling about it that eventually Titus will investigate, like the no Shepard without Vakarian comment.

Time enough for that later. Thanks to his son and the human woman before him - Garrus’ _wife_ , he still can’t believe that Garrus married Commander Shepard, human and Spectre - they have the rest of their lives, uninterrupted by the reapers. Shepard makes her way to sit beside Titus, her walking aid making little thunks as she moves. He finds himself looking forward to learning about the woman behind the legend. She’s important to Garrus, more important that Titus would have thought, and he wonders if he’s met a Spectre he didn’t immediately dislike on principle alone.

 _First time for everything_ , he thinks.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> triticum: yet another real-world plant  
> there's a reference to events in another of senna's fics in this, but that fic isn't necessary to understand what's going on (and is yet-unpublished at the time of this chapter being posted)
> 
> flashbacks more clearly denoted at reader suggestion! thank you for the feedback <3


End file.
